Wait. I Wrote Something?!?

Est. Read Time: 65min
This Month's Font: Mali

Oh, geez. I promise you guys, I started working on this post about a week before the end of March. I thought it was going to be relatively quick. I thought I was going to be able to proudly publish a monthly update with time to spare this go.

The next thing I know, I'm constantly getting interrupted while I'm working on this update, and it has become a MASSIVE post that takes roughly AN HOUR to read! Soooooo.... the update got delayed until today.

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What took so long with writing this blog? Well, for one, as I mentioned, I talked A LOT this month. I had no clue I had so much to share with you fine folks, but... well... I got to gush about a new interest of mine that I haven't really had a chance to discuss with too many people up until this point. So I may have gone a bit overboard.

Because of that, I did include hyperlinks to jump you over different sections of this post. That way you don't have to slog though things you either already know or don't care to know about. Hopefully that will save you some reading time. However, it did mean that I had to learn the html coding first. It's simple to do, and I had fun including it, but I still had to learn HOW. So that took up some time.

I also discovered that I can include alt text in all of my images. I sure hope it works this time. I know it hasn't in the past. Regardless, assuming it does work, I wrote up alt text for every image I put on this post. I... never know how detailed they should be... so they took LOADS longer than I anticipated to write up. Especially with HOW MANY images I've included this update....

So, those are the three main reasons it kept me longer than expected to write this post up in the first place, but why exactly is it so lengthy!?

Well, my fine friends....

I DID IT! I WROTE SOMETHING! I... actually wrote A LOT! (not including this novella of a blog post)

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Before I get into it, though, I should probably explain how I was able to break through my nearly year-long drought. Yeah. This is where the bulk of this post is going to come from.

Mainly, my sledge hammer for that writers block ended up being simply sticking to my second New Years resolution: "Read an average of 7.5hrs per month (that's the equivalent of 15min per day for a 30-day month)."

I started off the month failing HARD with this resolution yet again. I felt exceptionally guilty about that fact when I visited my sister for her birthday. She spent much of the weekend carrying around a travel mug and wearing a hoodie both decorated in fandom decals I didn't recognize. It gave off Harry Potter vibes but was distinctly NOT Harry Potter.

Sadly, reader, I cannot remember the name of the series she told me it was. Mostly because she then showed me the SIZE of these books in the franchise! And I was dumbfounded by how THICCC they were! You could bludgeon someone to death with these monsters! And my sister was tearing through them in a week or two? Maybe a whole month if it was a particularly chonky novel.

I wasn't even reading the equivalent of the smallest novel in the franchise over the course of a YEAR! And yet my sister - who works, is planning a wedding, has a semi-long-distance relationship with her fiancé, is preparing to move into their marital home, and is almost exclusively crocheting crafts she sells as a side-hustle whenever I see her - she ALSO has time to just endlessly read!?

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Bravo to her for keeping up with such an important hobby. Shame on me for slipping so far.

Septa Unella, the "shame nun"
Game of Thrones season 5

Although, to be slightly fair to myself, it truly helps if you find a story that just GRABS you. Much like when I read FLOAT in the fall. I was obsessively reading the webcomic adaptation. Then I bought the book because I was itching to tear through the story faster than the paywalls on Webtoon would allow. Finally, I bulldozed my way through the novel in less than a week! So, it's actually fairly easy if you find the right story. Which I eventually did this month, but let me work my way up to that.

First, let's recap my reading journey via webcomics and digital mangas. Or... rather... manhwas (the South Korean equivalent of the Japanese manga). A LOT of what I've been reading (namely, on Webtoon) has been localized manhwas.

Along those lines, let me explain the term for a specific genre I seem to favor lately: Isekai, or Portal Fantasy. If you already know what isekais are (or you don't care to learn), feel free to jump ahead.

I'm sure you are all already familiar with the concept of Portal Fantasy, even if you didn't realize that's what the subgenre was called. It is when the main character is either physically or mentally spirited away to an unfamiliar time or world. Well-known stories such as The Chronicles of Narnia, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and the TV series Futurama are all portal fantasies. Even video games like Super Mario Bros is a Portal Fantasy! At least... any of the games/shows/movies that keep with the canon that Mario and Luigi are initially from Brooklyn, NY.

While the main character isn't spirited away anywhere, one could also argue zombie apocalypse stories such as The Walking Dead could be considered Portal Fantasy as well. Or, Portal Fantasy Adjacent, at the very least. The main character goes to sleep (or falls into a coma, in this case) in a world he recognizes. One we, the audience, also recognizes. Yet, when he awakes, he's in an unknown world with unknown rules and codes of conduct that he must now learn and navigate.

In Japan, the Portal Fantasy subgenre was called "Isekai", which roughly translates to "Other World" or "Different World" or "Another World". In Western Portal Fantasy stories, the protagonist typically returns to their familiar world by the end of the adventure. Again, think Alice from Wonderland, Dorothy from Oz, Wendy from Neverland, the Pevensie children from Narnia, and Hank Morgan from Camelot. There are some exceptions, such as Rick from The Walking Dead, Fry from Futurama, and Joel from The Last of Us, who cannot return to the time/world they once knew. Regardless, even in those cases, they are still themselves. They have just resolved to stay in the world they are now in.

For isekai, on the other hand, there are two subgenres of this fantasy subgenre. The first is similar to what I discussed for the Western Portal Fantasies: "transition into another world" or isekai ten'i. Some popular anime that fits this subgenre includes Fushigi Yûgi (probably the pioneer isekai in the West), The Vision of Escaflowne, Digimon Adventure, Magic Knight Rayearth, Inuyasha, Sword Art Online, and the acclaimed Hayao Miyazaki (Studio Ghibli) film Spirited Away.

The other subgenre of isekai is called "reincarnation into another world" or isekai tensei. In this version of the subgenre, the protagonist dies - usually killed tragically - in the real world right as the series opens, and is then reincarnated in to this new world. The most common way for the protagonist to tragically/suddenly die is by being hit by a truck. It is such a common trope of isekai tensei that the truck destined to kill the protagonist is lovingly/jokingly called "truck-kun" by fans. Modern isekai protagonists even joke about truck-kun themselves. Some will curse out "truck-kun" (meaning the truck itself, not the driver at fault) for killing them. Others will elate that they weren't isekai'd by truck-kun.

In most cases, the isekai'd protagonist will reincarnate within the already grown body of a person that lives in this new world, effectively possessing and taking over this person's (usually) tragic life. In some cases, the protagonist will be truly reincarnated, waking up inside a recently birthed child. The fun comes from the protagonist still having all of their adult memories even when fully reincarnated. Which is another key factor of reincarnation isekais. The protagonist pretty much always remembers their former life in the real world, and uses that information to improve their new life.

For instance, a few years back, Dragnime had us watch his favorite anime Saga of Tanya the Evil, wherein the protagonist claimed there was no god. Hearing this, God Himself (or, at least, a being posing as God), doesn't prevent the protagonist from being murdered by a disgruntled former employee. Instead, "God" isekais the unnamed protag into the body of orphaned baby girl Tanya in an Alternate Universe version of Imperial Germany. Using his adult, modern knowledge and his personal vendetta against "God" (whom he dubbed "Being X"), Tanya becomes a military prodigy.

You also have some weird mixes of the two isekai subgenres. For instance, famed manga/anime YuYu Hakusho is probably the West's first introduction to good ol' "Truck-kun" when the protag is killed off within the first episode of the series (although, he was struck by a car, not a truck... close enough). He is then essentially isekai'd into the spirit world, but also later had his original body resurrected. So he can still live within the real world but also travel between the two realms, much like how Kagome travels through time via the well in Inuyasha.

There's also stories like The Familiar of Zero or The Rising of the Shield Hero where the protag wasn't killed in the real world, and therefore wasn't reincarnated in this new world, but also doesn't really have a way to get back home. So, the end result is fairly similar to reincarnation isekais.

A fun "secret" third subgenre of isekai/portal fantasy is the "reverse isekai", wherein the fantastical enters our world instead. Anime such as The Devil is a Part-Timer! and Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid are good examples of this subgenre. As is, oddly enough, the Hollywood movie Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure once all of the historical figures are time-traveled out of their original times.

OK! So, primer done! Sorry, that was probably a lot, but I needed to make sure you understood what I was talking about as I discussed the many stories I've been reading lately.

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As I mentioned back in December, my return to the app Webtoon started with FLOAT. It's a simple, slice-of-life, teenage-first-love story. I followed an artist I enjoyed over to her work on FLOAT and the Webtoon app in general.

OK. Sorry. I think we need another time-out so I can remind everyone how apps like Webtoon and Comikey work before I continue. Feel free to jump ahead again if you don't need this bit either.

These apps have a large collection of webcomics/mangas/manhwas/etc. The stories are split up into smaller bits. On Webtoon - to go with the "cartoon" vibe - these segments are called "episodes" and have a weekly release/update schedule if they are "originals" (aka, Webtoon officially licensed them, they are exclusive to Webtoon, and the creator is matched with a personal editor for their work. The creator also gets paid directly from Webtoon). If the Webtoon comic is a "Canvas" story, that means Webtoon simply hosts the digital version. The creator has to sort out editing themselves, and gets paid via ad revenue instead of directly from Webtoon. The creator does have more creative liberties, however, such as uploading their comic in places in addition to Webtoon, and they can set their own upload schedule. The reason I had originally stopped using Webtoon for so long was because, at the time, the only comic I followed was Punderworld. Being a "Canvas" series, the creator Linda Sejic could opt to put her series on hold - which she did - so she could instead focus on her primary series Blood Stain. Having not gotten into Blood Stain yet, I didn't see the need to use the app again until Punderworld returned.

Anyway, as I was saying, Webtoon comics are uploaded "episodes" at a time. Over on Comikey, they are listed as "chapters"... although it's more like "subchapters"? Most of the manga I read on Comikey has the official chapters segmented into 12-page increments. So you'll end up with chapters numbered "Chapter 1.1/Chapter 1.2/Chapter 1.3/Chapter 2.1/Chapter 2.2", etc. So, for the rest of this post, whenever I mention a Comikey chapter, I mean these roughly 12pg weekly updates, as opposed to the "official chapters" like how you would get them in a physically published manga.

I'm sure just about any/all digital comic apps have a similar set up, but I'll talk about Webtoon and Comikey specifically since these are the apps I use.

Now, for Webtoon, the first couple of episodes are free. A way to hook the reader and give them a taste of what the story is like. Then, the remaining episodes are locked behind paywalls. You can either (a) buy coins to pay the app directly to unlock the paywall episodes at roughly 7 coins (about $0.70 USD) per episode, (b) watch an ad to unlock the next episode (this usually caps at 3 episodes and has its own drawbacks I'll explain later), or (c) wait patiently for a week until the next episode unlocks for free-reading on its own. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason behind how many episodes are locked behind the paywall. However, the most recent episode uploaded by the creator does seem to consistently be locked for a month or two before it's officially released for free consumption. Once an episode is unlocked for free-reading it is forever free to read.

This becomes a big benefit of getting into a series late. You now have significantly more free content to consume before you hit the paywall. Yay!

Comikey, on the other hand, tends to dump multiple completed chapters (so, the official chapters as you would see them in a published manga) up on the app at once. They then have the first handful of their version of chapters (so, roughly the equivalent of 1 or 2 official chapters) free to read to draw users in. Then, you get a daily pass. Once per day, you can use your daily pass to read the next locked chapter of the series. One pass per series you are reading. This temporarily unlocks the chapter. So, if you are like me and want to go back to reread an earlier chapter, you have to do so before it relocks and you have to unlock it again. Comikey seems to average about 72hrs of free reading before it relocks the chapter. After using your daily pass for a series, you can opt to watch an ad to read a second chapter. But that's it. You can't read any further that day without using their in-app currency: keys. The mangas I follow ask for 3 keys per chapter, and you can buy 20 for $2 USD. Significantly cheaper per-chapter unlock (~$0.30 USD) than Webtoon, but, at least the Webtoon ones are, I believe, a permanent unlock. I don't know if Comikey's are as well.... The other downside of Comikey is that it doesn't seem to matter how late to the party you are with any manga. They all just forever and always only have the first official chapter or so available for free and you just have to use daily passes, ad watches, and key purchases to read through the manga faster (or go back to re-read).

Yet another negative of Comikey? The permanent paywall. At least two mangas that I have been chopping at the bit for just seem to have permanently locked me out without paying now. I got 11 official chapters into one, and 9 into another. And now I'm just.... stuck. Whereas, over on Webtoon, if a story is completed I can tear through it until I hit the temporary paywall, and then I just wait for the weekly unlocks for those final episodes. So.... yeah... Comikey's paywall sucks. I'll talk a bit more about this later.

So, the TL;DR of that whole thing is that, even if I am REALLY into a series - such as FLOAT or The Dragon King's Bride - I still can't fully binge-read something. I can get fairly far, as I did with both of those series, but then I hit that paywall and I'm halted. Forced to either spend money on coins/keys or wait for the next free unlock. Worse still is tearing through mangas on Comikey and then hitting that permanent paywall.

Too ravenous for more content to patiently wait for the weekly releases, I made the mistake of watching the ads on Webtoon to unlock more The Dragon King's Bride early. The caveat is that it did not unlock the following episodes any sooner. That fourth episode that I couldn't reach without keys was still locked for the 28 days that it was when I finished reading my weekly free episode. Which meant, instead of getting new content each week for those next three weeks, I had to sit and wait for nearly a month for that next episode to unlock for me. What's worse? The early-unlock episodes were only available for 3 days! Just like with Comikey. Then I had to wait for their designated free-public-release date for them to be available for free re-reads. Or, I could opt to watch ads again, but it still only ever unlocked those initial 3 episodes.

On March 24th I accidentally did the same thing - use ads to read the next 3 locked episodes - for my latest story obsession, meaning I now have to wait nearly a month for new content! But I'm not QUITE there yet to talk further about this story. I just wanted to point out the aforementioned downside of using the ads to unlock episodes early on Webtoon.

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That was a LOT of preamble. Sorry about that. Promise we are FINALLY to the point! This next segment talks about how I got back into reading and gives summaries of all of the webcomics I'm subscribed to. If you want to skip ahead again, you can get right to the main series I want to talk about here.

So, to recap... again.... Over on Webtoon, I started reading FLOAT. I then saw an ad for The Dragon King's Bride and started reading that. Much like FLOAT, I was OBSESSESED with this series! I devoured it as fast as I could! I was entranced by the budding romance between the leads Lucina and her shotgun-wedding groom: King Hakan. Their flirting was so sweet and hot and awkward. It was just so good! Plus, you have a handful of miscommunication issues and secrets and... well, I already talked about all of this at length back in December. If you want to learn a bit more about the plot of TDKB and my initial thoughts (same for FLOAT), go back and check out that post.

Sadly, much like FLOAT, I binged until I got caught up with The Dragon King's Bride episode paywall. Then I became stuck in "wait for weekly updates" limbo.

FLOAT would update Sunday nights around 9pm ET. I would bring up the app. Read for maybe 15min - which IS my daily goal - and then.... what? Same deal with TDKB, which updates Tuesdays at 9pm ET. I had the app up anyway. I was in the mood to read now that I had completed my weekly 15min-update read. Rental Hero also updated Tuesday nights at 9ET. So, I'd typically flow from TDKB into that. At least it felt worth opening the app then.

The mystery of Rental Hero is what really draws me in. Seeing the main character Juwon kind of come into Justice's power while working that espionage angle to try to figure out who managed to kill the world's #1 hero? So good. Having his life on the line pretty much no matter what he does? Excellent. Giving him the tragic backstory of not being able to save his sister with his natural-born powers, and how he's trying to make up for it by using these new found powers? *chef kiss* Adding in the potentially budding romance between him and Chrome? Well, golly gee! You KNOW I'm a sucker for romantic plots/b-plots (or, at least, you WILL if you haven't sorted that out quite yet). Plus, you get all of these really neat mutations and powers and world build. It is really scratching my Glitches itch. Who knows? Maybe it could even inspire me to work on that original content again. I know My Girls would appreciate that.

Okay, so I'm up to roughly 30-45 minutes of reading time in the app on Tuesdays. I still had a BUNCH of free episodes of Mythic Item Obtained that I could also catch up on. I could fill the gaps with that. And, for a while, I did (again, see December's post).

Then ChibiSunnie started promoting the stories she had helped edit. That brought me to Comikey finally. As I mentioned last post, I started with My Housemate Sano-kun is Just My Editor! Then there was The Lady Likes a Nerd Over Princes. The one that truly hooked me, however, was easily From General to Bride: Marrying My Strongest Rival. Again, I went over why in more detail in my last update, and this post is getting chonky enough as it is. So I won't bog this post down further by reiterating that.

For a while now, the platonic/maaaaaaaybe-flirty slice-of-life story of My Housemate Sano-kun is Just My Editor! just hasn't been my thing. It's a good story. I'm enjoying it. My problem, however - as it is with all slice-of-life stories - is that there wasn't enough of a hook to drive me to keep turning the page, metaphorically. Like, it felt more akin to an episodic cartoon: you could drop in whenever. The other stories I was following had more intrigue and bigger stakes. I would get to the end of my free reads and wonder "But... what next!?" So, sadly, MHSJME kind of fell to the wayside.

The Lady Likes a Nerd Over Princes definitely hooked me more, but there were still days where I didn't have much time to read, so I was like "I can miss a day or two before finding out what happens next."

For From General to Bride, however? Oh heck no! I used my daily pass and watched an ad EVERY DAY to tear through this story! Problem is, I crashed face-first into that paywall. And it hasn't budged for close to a month. So, as I mentioned above, I'm pretty sure this is just a permanent paywall now. Maybe once more chapters are translated and uploaded I'll get daily passes for free reading again, but, as of right now, my daily passes will only allow me to reread the earlier chapters. La sad.

Now that FGTB has been effectively removed from my reading list (unless I want to go back and reread... which I have definitely been doing...), I've picked up another romance. It was advertised and promoted fairly heavily, and I finally decided to give it a peruse to see what it's even about.

I HAVE FOUND MY NEW OBSESSION!

(Yeah, as I mentioned above, I'll be recapping plots of a bunch of new stories I've been reading. If you decided that you just want to get to the part where I talk about what I wrote, feel free to have this grand leap.)

The story is called Double the Trouble, Twice as Nice. You start off hearing about a pharmaceutical company trying to figure out who will be their new CEO, but - gasp! - the prime candidate has gone MIA a few short months before the board vote! Next, we see our female lead: Yuri Hayama. She's a 28yo office worker (or, as the official summary puts it: "bottom-tier corporate slave"). She's physically and mentally exhausted from working such long hours. In part, because she can't say "no" to anyone, and so she's been taken advantage of to cover for countless coworkers. Also, her long hours are, in part, because she HAS to make as much money as possible to try to pay off debts her deadbeat dad saddled her with before running out on his family. If her life isn't rough enough, her boyfriend of 3yrs Asami not only dumped her, but informed her that he is already engaged to someone else! Completely down and defeated, Yuri stumbles upon a child unconscious on the streets clinging desperately to a choker necklace! She can't find his parents and her phone is dead, so she can't call for help. Unsure how else to care for the kid, she carries him home. She cleans him up and nurses his wounds while waiting for her phone to finish charging enough to call someone about the boy. Unfortunately, while tending to the kid, her own exhaustion overtakes her, and she passes out. When she wakes up, the kid is gone, but the hottest guy she's ever seen in her life is on her futon instead!

After some freaking out on Yuri's end - because... of COURSE she'd freak out! - the man introduces himself as Ren and tells Yuri that he's the little boy she carried home. He then demonstrates by taking off the choker necklace the boy had been clinging to so desperately. In an instant, the kid is in front of Yuri again. Ren puts the choker back on, and reverts to his adult body. Which happens to be the body of the missing CEO candidate from the opening.

He explains to Yuri that he's 18 and the adult body is his natural state, but a weird lab accident transformed his body into that of a child. Thankfully, he was able to sort out a temporary solution by way of the choker, but he needs to find a permanent cure. He also can't return to his own home until he is cured, so he asks if he can stay with Yuri.

It takes some convincing, but Yuri agrees to him becoming her roommate. As a thank you, Ren uses his previously unmentioned wealth to pay off all of Yuri's debts. He also uses his free time while in hiding to play househusband, keeping Yuri's place clean and making her phenomenal meals to help nurse her back to health. He does all he can to help her heal from her physical and mental exhaustion, and encourages her to open up about how hard her life is, allowing her to heal her mental health further.

It's then revealed that Yuri's ex is the alternative candidate for CEO mentioned in the opening of the series. Also, he had been engaged to his fiancée for nearly five years! Yuri was unknowingly and unwillingly the "other woman" for three years!? AND Asami wants Yuri back!? Meanwhile, Ren is falling HARD for his sweet, broken roommate.

To be fair, she's also falling for this gorgeous, mysterious man who takes such good care of her. She is just REALLY icked out by the idea that he's ONLY EIGHTEEN!

Bravo to Yuri for being like, "Nah, man. I know you're legally an adult, but you're BARELY an adult and I'm still TEN YEARS older than you!"

But also.... I ship these two together so hard!

Ren is just so sweet and caring with Yuri. He encourages her to put herself first and to not shy away from her feelings. He does everything in his power to help relieve her of her pre-existing burdens. He tries to spoil her. He protects her best he can. He needs to learn boundaries a bit more - he's kissed her twice without getting proper consent - but otherwise doesn't try to pressure her into doing anything she's not comfortable with, and instantly backs up the moment he realizes she's not ready. He's mature for his age due to his scientific prodigy. I just really like him and Yuri together!

So... yeah. I'm hooked by the romance alone, but you also have the mystery of how Ren got transformed into a child in the first place, and how he's going to cure himself. Also, there's the chess match between Ren and Yuri's ex, both over Yuri's heart, but also over that CEO position.

It's just such a fun series that I wish I could devour faster but it is also the second aforementioned manga that I've smacked hard into a paywall for. I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT AND I CAN'T SEE IT WITHOUT SPENDING REAL-WORLD MONIES!

Comikey's paywalls are going to be the death of me.

It did give me that reading itch back, though. As well as something I needed more: a fairly regular reading routine! Wooo! So, after checking in with Comikey first, I've also built the habit of switching over to Webtoons.

I don't have daily unlocks on Webtoon the way I do on Comikey, though. What I did have was still only FLOAT on Sundays, and The Dragon King's Bride and Rental Hero on Tuesdays. There was also Mythic Item Obtained, but I was definitely now in a romance kick. MIO is interesting, but it's also VERY aggressive and action-heavy. It's still fun to see the lead strategize and all, but... no romance to be found. And I wanted me some romance.

So instead, I turned to the manhwa I Will Live the Life of a Villainess. I talked about this story last month, so feel free to go back and check that out if you need a refresher. In short, I really loved this story. I was captivated by the strategic minds of both the female and male leads. I adored the focus on female-empowerment within the story. The romance of it, however? It was so far on the back burner that, in one episode where there is a hint of flirting between the leads, one of the top comments was "Oh. Right. This is in the Romance category...."

I still happily read IWLLV every Tuesday - after going through my updates of TDKB and RH - but I'm not as ravenous for more content as I once was, or the way I am for TDKB or Double the Trouble, Twice as Nice or FGTB.

Instead, I have another Canvas Webtoon that I'm chomping at the bit for. I had seen it advertised when I first got the Webtoon app, and I had even joked before with Hubby and Aurora Morgen that I might be the main character. The series is called Her Wish to be Isekai'd. I never did get into reading it a few years ago when I was first advertised it. However, the creator decided to reboot the series, so it is once again being heavily advertised on the main page of the app. I figured, "since it came back into my orbit, it must be Fate that I read it."

Holy hecken is this a plucky little story. Given that it's Canvas, the creator can more-or-less do whatever she wants for the series. So each episode feels painfully short, especially compared to those I get with the "Original" content I also read. Plus, the artist doesn't seem to be doing this professionally (at least, not yet), so she only updates twice a month. Such a painfully long wait for more content. Especially because I really am loving the characters and the multi-layered plot.

The series starts with an unnamed woman with long, brunette hair chained to dungeon walls. Her hair is in her face. Purple veins visibly run through her body. She casts a spell, commenting about not yet getting her "divine blessing". She asks for her wish to be granted. Then it cuts to our female lead in the modern world.

We are introduced to our lead - college student Selina Garnett - out on her balcony. She's negotiating with herself as to how much more of the fantasy romance story she can read before getting back to her homework. She is then startled to see a shooting star. She struggles to figure out what to wish for, but eventually - and jokingly - wishes to be isekai'd into the romance she's reading. As she laughs about how silly of a wish that was, she is hit by the shooting star. She's convinced that she was killed, but she then blinks awake. It takes a beat for her to catch her bearings - confused by things such as the field she was asleep in, the regal dress she's wearing, and the castle in the background - before she realizes that she got her wish!

She wonders which character she's become, and happily greets a couple of maids to find out. She is Lady Elise Rosenborn, a minor character in the story Selina was reading who was more of a plot prop than an actual character. Elise also happens to look exactly like Selina, so she's a bit disappointed that she simply looks like herself in fancy dresses. Her disappointment is countered by her elation over the character she got. Due to Elise being an almost non-existent character in the story means virtually nothing Selina does as Elise would affect the story plot. She just needs to make sure she's where she needs to be for that one crucial plot point, stay out of the story protagonist's way the rest of the time, and then her life is her own!

Her excitement over her getting such a good character to isekai into ends up straining her body too much, and the poor woman coughs up blood as she collapses. That's when she remembers the one time Elise is used in the story.

The plot of the story Selina was reading centers around the female lead Erin, a "saintess" (basically a priestess with divine powers). Erin finds poor, sickly, fragile Elise collapsed at a festival. Erin is able to use her "saintly" powers to heal and cure Elise. Worried for his sister, Elise's older brother Duke Damien sends her out of the country to recover; fortuitous, given a war soon breaks out within the country the main characters live in. But it also explains why Elise isn't utilized further in the story outside from being mentioned. For instance, when Erin gives up being a saintess so she could be a mage instead, she is personally trained by Duke Damien as a thank you for saving his sister.

Selina didn't finish the story before getting isekai'd, so the above information, plus a few spoilers that she had read, was all that she knew of the core plot. She doesn't know what Elise's fate is, but hopes it's a long, happy life.

She's now not sure whether or not to be happy about the character she got. She's not the female lead, so her life should be far from drama, complications, and trials and tribulations. It's more-or-less her own to live how she wants since she - as far as she knows - won't be able to affect the story's main plot. However, she doesn't know her character's fate. She's sickly, so she can't do too much. Also, she'll be sent away from her character's only family. Will she be lonely? Bored? Will she survive?

As Selina/Elise ponders how to live this new isekai'd life, she walks out onto her balcony, only for the intruder alarm to instantly go off. The mages, thinking Elise was still in bed, puts a protective seal on her room that accidentally locks her out on the balcony. It's then that she realizes that she's already screwed up. It was only mentioned in passing in the story, but Elise had been begging her brother to let her go to the festival to watch the fireworks. In the end, he lets her go, despite her poor health. This was that night, but she had turned down the offer to go see the fireworks. She was drained from everything and didn't see the point in going. Now she knows the point: Elise wasn't supposed to be home during the invasion where two guards and a maid are killed defending the estate.

Panicked, but assuming she's safe regardless of being on her balcony since Elise didn't seem to be the target in the story, she is instantly proven wrong again. The infamous assassin of the story - Adrian - ends up on Elise's balcony to hide from the guards. He decides to use Elise as a human shield. He kidnaps her so the guards won't attack him, and then safely drops her off on the outskirts of her family estate once he knows he has safely gotten away. During their escape, Adrian still manages to injure his arm, causing it to bleed pretty profusely. Despite being kidnapped, Elise is smitten with this gorgeous assassin who did treat her gently and freely released her once he was safe, even without her asking. She grabs his hand to try to inspect his arm. Adrian pulls away, gives her his cloak to keep her warm, and then shoos her back to the mansion. Once she's gone, he tries to tend to his arm himself, only to discover it had already stopped bleeding and started to heal.

Elise, knowing the character needs to be at the festival for Erin to find, convinces her brother to let her go, even after the kidnapping. She ends up wandering away from her bodyguards and passing out from heat stroke. Erin does find her, and we're introduced to The Core, a metaphysical plane where the person's soul and mana reserve manifest as a golden crystal. Elise's crystal was pointed, cracked, and vine-covered. It looked ruined, which is why she was so frail. Erin tried to heal Elise's crystal, but got rejected; her astral projection getting booted out of Elise without healing her. This confuses both women.

Erin ends up waking up in the monastery, having been found collapsed and brought home. Meanwhile, Elise was left on a bench under a tree at the festival. Who brought Erin home? Who moved Elise? We have no clue. However, Adrian, who was still in the area after the attack on the Rosenborn estate, ends up finding Elise, and is shocked that she isn't guarded. He decides to watch over her until she awakes. When she does, she's so shocked to see him that she calls out his name - which she only knows due to her knowledge of the story. Adrian is startled that she knows so much about him, and demands to know why. Elise distracts him by confessing that she's sickly and will likely die soon, so could he maybe please not kill her... since she has such a short time left anyway???? He seems concerned for her condition. This gives her an idea, and she tries out a tried and true trope: Enemies to Lovers. She hopes, if she can get him to fall for her, that maybe he'll be more inclined to spare her. So she asks him to escort her around the festival. To her surprise, he agrees and they have a lovely date....

Which ends in them accidentally marrying each other! Whoops!

That evening, while asleep, Elise slips back into the metaphysical plane with her crystal. Somehow, she manages to heal it herself, causing it to morph into a pristine, golden orb. In doing so, she also gains all of Elise's memories. All the backstory stuff Selina/Elise wasn't privy to since it wasn't in the original story. Her illness is cured, and she can now cast magic! She needs her brother to follow the plot of the story, though, so she tries to convince him that the saintess Erin had cured her and that he should track her down. He doesn't fully believe Elise.

Meanwhile, Adrian is torn because he was tortured and imprisoned for a decade while battling with a demon contract, so, socially, he's the equivalent of a toddler. He has no clue what it means to be married to Elise, but he knows that he hopes she's alright. His handler, on the other hand, wants Elise killed to remove Adrian's distraction from assassinations. There's also this little chickadee that visits Elise as she recovers from her various illness-induced fainting spells prior to healing herself. Her brother Damien frequently talks to the bird as if they can understand each other, and Damien comments on how precious Elise is to the bird. The bird also has the same magenta eyes as Adrian, and watches him closely. A masked second assassin, upon meeting up with Adrian after the assault on the Rosenborn estate, called Elise "the crown prince's childhood friend and fiancée", details that Selina did NOT know about Elise prior to becoming her. Finally, Erin, startled awake after her failed attempt to heal Elise, leaves to train as a mage, but is told her mana is depleting and no longer recovering; unheard of! She ends up disguising herself as a new maid for Duke Damien, since the mage's guild wouldn't assign her to him as an apprentice. However, while in disguise, she goes by the name Selina Garnett! The lead's IRL name! WHAT!?

I won't go further into the plot because I don't want to share more spoilers than I already have. However, this story is just so good. So many layers. So many mysteries. So many questions! The romance between Elise and Adrian is so sweet. Elise doesn't even TRY to fit into the story by avoiding modern phrases or expressions. She leans heavy into relying on story tropes and speaks as such as well. She even went as far as to yell at Adrian for being so attractive despite being a minor character and a villain. He was very confused by being called a "minor character". It was beautiful. Selina/Elise is such a glorious fandom nerd! I love her!

Okay, but HWTBI only updates twice a month. What other stories could I focus on when that reading itch kicks in, considering I'm all caught up on the other romances I'm subscribed to?

Well, as I was reading through I Will Live the Life of the Villainess, the recommended section at the end of the episode had another red-haired female-led story showcased: Leveling Up My Husband to the Max.

The way the leads were posed in the thumbnail was very similar to IWLLV. I got a chuckle and decided to give it a shot, assuming it was some sort of copycat story.

Nope. Not even close. In fact, Leveling Up My Husband to the Max is actually the older one, and it's already a completed story. Also, the plot isn't close. For one, the female lead Amber isn't EXACTLY isekai'd. It's one of those "isekai-adjacent" sort of stories. She is reincarnated upon a tragic death at the start of the story... but she's reincarnated as her younger self.

Amber had suffered extreme abuse and neglect at the hands of her distant husband and entitled mother-in-law. She is given the classic "Cinderella" treatment of abuse, neglect, and forced servitude after getting married off to the duke of a desolate wasteland overrun with plague and monster invasions. Amber endured for a decade, and even rejoiced at discovering that she was pregnant. Then, the Emperor framed the duke for an alleged uprising in order to have an excuse to wipe the dukedom off the map, including poor Amber and her unborn child.

After being struck down by the Emperor, Amber wakes up in her wedding dress. She is determined to not let the last ten years play out the same way. She starts off by demanding to see her husband Carlyx. The first time she lived through her wedding day, her husband didn't even greet her when she arrived at his castle. He had gone off with his troops to combat a monster invasion. Him heading out with his troops led to him getting sucked into more invasion interventions and a war. Amber didn't even officially meet her husband until two years into their arranged marriage; long after her entitled and power-hungry mother-in-law had already used Amber's dowry to buy herself jewelry, and then blamed Amber for not having the funds to properly care for the household. Duke Carlyx's leaving for the first two years of their marriage was the instant downfall of Amber's life, and she wouldn't let it happen again.

She knew from her previous life that the invasion was small enough for the knights to handle it alone, so she begs her husband to stay with her. She also asks for him to show her the same level respect that she shows him - calling her "My Lady" to correspond to her calling him "Duke". To Amber's surprise, he agrees to all of her requests. This is not the Carlyx she had been married to for 10 years!

Amber is never privy to it the way the audience is, but Carlyx was leading his troops not to avoid Amber, but instead in an attempt to give her a better life. He had seen her in passing once when he visited the empire's capital. He loved how much life and joy she displayed as she socialized in the courtyard. Knowing how desolate his land had become after it was poisoned by a mysterious force, he was devastated to discover that the Emperor himself had made the match between Carlyx and Amber. Carlyx was smitten with her the second he had seen her at the capital, but feared not being able to provide enough for her. That he'd kill her spirit. That she wouldn't be able to live the lush life she's used to. The irony is that his leaving for two years - in an attempt to make their home safer for Amber, and in hopes of finding enough spoils to get funds to help provide for her - actually caused the break in her spirit that he feared. Namely at the hands of his own mother. When he returned home finally after two years of fighting he was a changed man, and she was already a frail woman with little life left herself. He had failed on two fronts, and it caused a further rift in their marriage. He became distant and seemingly oblivious to the abuse his wife endured under his mother's rule over the household.

In this lifetime, though? Amber stopped him from leaving. He instantly did what she requested. He wrestled Amber's dowry back from his mother. He helped Amber get acquainted with the grounds and the servants. He worked with his wife in transitioning the control of the household from his mother to Amber.

What stings so sweetly with this story IS how smitten Carlyx is, and yet the relationship between the two of them stays at arm's length. Amber is still traumatized by her previous life, so she has an understandably hard time trusting Carlyx this go. She finds this version of her husband kinder, more open-minded, and a bit more social, so she is struggling not to fall for him. She tries to avoid getting her heart broken by false hope by reminding herself how Carlyx was the first time. She then routinely comments to Carlyx that she understands that he doesn't want the marriage any more than she does; that she also isn't romantically interested; that they can go about their days as if they weren't actually married; that she understands that the marriage is just a business arrangement organized by the Emperor.

Since Amber makes a point of stressing that she knows the marriage has no romantic or sexual attachment to it, Carlyx (usually) resists showing any affection towards Amber, thinking it would be unwanted.

DEAR SWEET LORD, THE MISCOMMUNICATION IN THIS SERIES!

So good! Om nom nom! I'm gobbling it up!

Well, folks. This story officially threw me into a really weird isekai trope (at least, within manhwas). If you don't care and just want to get back into the other stories I've subscribed to, jump away.

Screenshot of my Webtoon Originals subscriptions

Do you notice the trope I fell into somehow???? Again, I started off by reading I Will Live the Life of the Villainess (upper right). I then tried out Leveling Up My Husband to the Max (bottom) because the thumbnail was so similar to that of IWLLV, and that amused me. I was then suggested Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story (middle). Same thumbnail composition: female lead with long, wavy, red hair in a fancy dress and pressed against the chest of the male lead; a slender, serious-looking man in royal/military-esque garb who wears his straight, black hair short with shaggy bangs. All three are either isekais or isekai-adjacent (such as LUMHTTM's protag reliving the last 10 years). All three female leads were reincarnated as noble women at the mercy of the men they are married/betrothed to, and all three end up getting executed at the original ending of their story (I'll get into this more for NYTRS in a minute). The love interest for all three protags also ends up being a stoic noble who is distant and calculated when the leads first meet.

That's so specific to begin with! How is "isekai'd protag is a female noble with long, wavy, red hair whose romantic interest is a stoic male noble with short, black hair with bangs" a whole trope!? It's borderline its own subgenre of isekai!

If that's not weird enough, turns out both IWLLV and NYTRS go even deeper! They get the added plot parallel of "female lead is a nondescript South Korean office worker with long hair kept in a high ponytail who, upon her tragic death, gets isekai'd as the villainess of the romance novel she knows by heart, and now she has to try to change the novel's plot to avoid getting executed by the novel's heroes."

Generated by Bitmoji

HOW!? And, even stranger, HOW ARE THESE STORIES ACTUALLY NOT ALIKE AT ALL ONCE YOU GET INTO THE ACTUAL PLOT!?

See, Dragnime and Aurora Morgen? This is why I tell you both to not worry if you think your stories are "cliché" or "trite". Look at how similar those two isekais seem on the surface, but they are still two very different stories with very different vibes. I'll get more into the differences in a bit, once I talk about Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story in some depth.

But first, I want to get back to that subscription list. You may have noticed that I didn't mention the first circled story in the above screenshot: The Fateful Invitation. No male lead in the thumbnail, so there IS a slight difference there. It also technically isn't an isekai since the protag Hillaria is never spirited to a new world/time/body. However, her family has hid for centuries that the females in their bloodline have magical powers. One of Hillaria's is that of precognition. She saw into the future where her principality is fully destroyed and burnt to ashes, just because she refused the Emperor's proposal. So, she uses her glimpses into the future to help direct her, similar to how isekai'd characters use the knowledge from their previous life. Which means, while The Fateful Invitation isn't technically an isekai, it still has some of the same flavor. Plus, Hillaria is still a female noble with long, wavy, red hair locked into an arranged marriage/engagement. Once you get far enough into the story, you find out that Hillaria's glimpse into the future saw the Emperor marrying someone else and this leads to Hillaria's principality getting attacked. So, not too dissimilar to the other plots of the female lead getting killed off because they are depicted as the villainesses against the Emperor/King/Prince/Duke's future wife. Also, you guessed it, the Emperor IS the romantic love interest, is a noble of higher standing than the protag, and has short, straight, black hair with shaggy bangs - Hillaria even comments on how the Emperor should really cut his bangs since they seem to bother his eyes.

HOW IS THIS SUCH A SPECIFIC TROPE!? AND HOW DO I KEEP FINDING IT!?

Well, to be fair to The Fateful Invitation, after being suggested NYTRS I just straight up went into the Romance category and searched for any/all that had thumbnails with noble-looking women with long, wavy, red hair. Just for S&Gs. There's also Divorcing My Tyrant Husband, but I haven't gotten around to reading that one quite yet. Although, yes, the "tyrant husband" in question does have a disinterested-stare, and is a black-haired noble (whom, I'm presuming, ends up as the main love interest... if the trope holds true).

I was also amused by the two comics I point out via arrows in the above image. Rental Hero because it still showcases both red and black, straight, shaggy-banged hair in the image... even if both hair types are on the protag mid-transformation. The other story, Answer Me, My Prince, is yet another isekai romance that includes an isekai'd noble (who is actually a book character) and a female lead with long, wavy, red hair. The main differences with AMMP are: 1) the isekai'd noble is actually the titular prince, creating a reverse-isekai, 2) the love interest has blonde hair...., and 3) the female lead does not seem to be in the same mortal danger as the other protags I've been reading.

Still, the wavy, red hair got me.

The thing I find the most humorous about this whole trope? It seems to just be translated/localized manhwas that have it! I've never experienced it while watching anime isekais. It also doesn't show up even once among those Canvas Webtoon series I follow. Is there some cultural significance in South Korea that I am unaware of that created such a weirdly specific trope? If you know anything about this I'd love to learn! Drop me some knowledge in that comment section below!

Getting back on topic, i.e. the stories I've been following. This is going to take a little while again, so here's another skip if you want to just jump to the story that rejuvenated my desire to write.

I eluded to the next story I started reading earlier - Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story - but I actually want to save that one for last since it relates to my own writing.

So, skipping ahead, we have The Fateful Invitation. I already gave the rough plotline earlier: magical princess sees her principality fall after she refuses the Emperor's proposal and he marries someone else instead. To try to prevent this future, the princess Hillaria agrees to the Emperor's proposal to become one of his Empress Consorts. Basically, he has four ladies that are the top candidates to become his wife, the empress, and they live on the palace's estate - Vladislav - a la The Bachelor or something. They all have incredibly high standing within the empire, considering they are the Emperor's personal consorts. They are each given their own personal, lesser castles within Vladislav, which, in and of itself, is the center of the empire's capital. Of course, the consorts also compete against each other to eventually woo the Emperor into marrying them and making them Empress.

Hillaria wants none of this. Due to her premonition, she goes into the arrangement with no desire to even interact with the Emperor. Why would she? He could potentially destroy everything dear to her. She is there to simply fulfill her obligation (and, hopefully, convince the Emperor to remain peaceful towards her principality). The other consorts - or, at least, two out of the other three - are confused and irritated by Hillaria's apparent lack of interest in the Emperor. Especially since Hillaria's dismissal of the Emperor only makes her all the more intriguing to him, so he pays her special attention.

I'll be honest. This story hasn't been as captivating as the others. I'm kind of "meh" about Hillaria. The other protagonists start on their back foot and have to plot and claw and strategize to try to find a peaceful existence that doesn't end in their demise. Hillaria, on the other hand, goes in with an advantage and has no problem throwing her weight around. The other consorts want to pull rank - since Hillaria was the last to accept the status of consort - or show off their own political power in a very intriguing way that I've seen in the other isekais. While this then becomes a political chess match in stories like I Will Live the Life of a Villainess or Leveling Up My Husband to the Max, in The Fateful Invitation Hillaria just throws around "I am a princess and therefore have higher standing than you, a duke's daughter. I don't have to listen to you" and.... there ends the conflict. For anyone that "I'm a princess" might not work against, she has another card up her sleeve: she can blackmail the other consorts over the murder of Hillaria's consort predecessor. Right out the gate the other consorts don't have a leg to stand on against her.

There's also this whole side plot where the Emperor's mother had died and his father re-married and had a second son. Upon the former Emperor's death, instead of naming his second son - the son of his current wife; the current Empress - as his successor, he upheld tradition that his first-born would become the new Emperor. The Empress Dowager briefly remained in power since her step-son was only 15 when her husband died, but he soon wrestled control from her. In the process, the new Emperor exiled his younger half-brother. For some reason, the Empress Dowager didn't go with her teenage son - nor was she also exiled with him??? - and instead remains within the Empress's castle upon Vladislav. She is, of course, plotting to dethrone the Emperor so she can place her son in his stead. The Emperor is well aware of this fact, but, again, doesn't exile his step-mother???? Instead, there's this supposed political chess match wherein the Emperor and his step-mother are each building up their metaphorical army of political backers, and the Empress Dowager is even tainting at least one of the Empress Consorts against the Emperor. This whole thing is supposed to set up another layer of conflict and difficulty for Hillaria, but she just kind of skirts it by staying neutral and convincing the Emperor to order her to not introduce herself to the Empress Dowager, that way it's not Hillaria's fault that she doesn't interact with the Empress Dowager.

All of this potential conflict set up in the story, and yet nothing even comes close to touching Hillaria. She is becoming a full-on Mary Sue, sadly. What's worse? The comments are FLOODED with praises for the female lead with things like "We stan our queen" and "yes girlboss!" and "she can order me around any time she'd like"..... I dunno. I just never connected with this character.

The EMPEROR, on the other hand?! The top comments tend to hate him - mostly because he's always one step ahead of Hillaria, and they can't stand that the male lead is outsmarting the "girlboss" female lead - but I ADORE him so much! Specifically because he IS outsmarting Hillaria! He's her only true opponent. Her only actual source of conflict. He turns the story into this cat-and-mouse game of wits. HE is what turns the story into the political chess match (with romantic elements) that I want to see/read.

That, and I greatly enjoy the side characters. The former Top Dog consort feels so much more complex and fleshed out than Hillaria. You don't know whether to hate her or root for her. The consort that the Empress Dowager managed to get on her side is one of those classic romantic "idiot" rivals/villains where you love to see her fail at all of her ill-conceived plotting. The third consort we don't know much of outside of being introverted and potentially a secret sword master. Then there's a member of the Emperor's inner-circle: a duke who is also secretly a weapons trafficker, and the cruel older brother of the Former Top Dog consort.

I read all of the other stories on my subscription list in order to follow and root for the main character(s). Conversely, I will probably continue to read The Fateful Invitation for all of the other characters despite the lead.

Oof.

The other problem I have with TFI? The names! Oh dear lord. I get that this is a localization of a manhwa where the South Korean author was trying to write about European culture, but....

The main character is named Hillaria. Which, of course, I have to fight to not read as "hilarious". I'm actually a little grateful when characters use the nickname "Hill" for her, but even that feels so ridiculous. Her last name is also Guinevere, so I'm always going to think of Arthurian legend whenever her family name comes up. Then, the Emperor in the story is named Ebenezer! I'm sorry, but after growing up with A Christmas Carol, I cannot read/hear the name "Ebenezer" and not think "Scrooge". So it's hard to take the male lead seriously as well. This fact is frequently pointed out in the comments section, so I'm glad I'm not alone in that. The surname "Winfred" doesn't really help matters either. Especially when his exiled half-brother is simply "Nathan". Speaking of, Nathan's mother, the Empress Dowager, is named "Lobelia". Sure. Why not? Next, you have the Former Top Dog consort: Sillotte (which is sometimes spelled with only one l). What IS that name? Is it supposed to be pronounced like "silhouette"? Is it "Charlotte" but with a "Sil" instead of "Char"? Why hasn't the translator or editor caught the spelling inconsistency for this name? Then you have her older brother Vaneyck. Not Van Eyck, as is normal, but Vaneyck, all one-word. We'll ignore that a) Van Eyck is a surname, not a given name, and b) Vaneyck and Sillotte's family name is friggen KLARINET! Another name that doesn't stay consistent throughout the story is the introverted sword master consort: Jayne (or... Jaina? Hillaria refers to her as Jayne, but everyone else calls her Lady Jaina. Is Jaina her last name? Is she Jayne Jaina?) The final rival consort is the one that Empress Dowager Lobelia is using as a pawn: Olivia Erasmo. Probably one of the most normal names we have in this lot. Especially when you see that Hillaria's head lady-in-waiting is called Chelloste! Again, HOW DO I PRONOUNCE THAT!? Meanwhile, Hillaria's main hand-maiden/companion/whomever she is is named Katie.... And Hillaria's childhood friend is Beatrice "Bebe" Genesis. Bouncing back to the consorts, before Hillaria's invitation, Emperor Ebenezer had another consort: Beniche Sebastian. Her younger brother Karthal was taken in by Hillaria's family upon Beniche's murder.

It's exhausting trying to keep these horrible names in my head. And yes, I did have to look all of those up right now, because I just could not wrangle them to the surface of my memory otherwise. On the plus side, it's a great case study on what NOT to do when coming up with fantasy names, I guess.

Racing through a few of my other subscriptions, we have a digital hosting of the official Avatar: The Last Airbender post-series comic The Promise. It was originally a three-part graphic novel published in 2012 by Dark Horse comics. That was a fun comic to see pop up on the home page when I opened the app a couple of weeks ago! You know I had to instantly subscribe to that one!

Lore Olympus has been on my To Read list for a while now. It's again a retelling of the story of Hades and Persephone. This time it has a more modern spin and seems to have more of a "high school drama"/"CW" vibe to it? Here's the official summary:

Witness what the gods do…after dark. The friendships and the lies, the gossip and the wild parties, and of course, forbidden love. Because it turns out, the gods aren’t so different from us after all, especially when it comes to their problems. Stylish and immersive, this is one of mythology’s greatest stories -- The Taking of Persephone -- as it’s never been told before.

I've heard awesome things about it, and it keeps getting suggested to me. I just haven't officially cracked it open yet.

Ever since creating Lia, I have had an affection towards volcanic rock and obsidian in general. So, when I saw a thumbnail with a similar vibe as all of those redhead isekai protags, and the title was called Obsidian Bride, you know I had to subscribe to it. It's another one that I haven't officially started yet, but it feels right up my alley lately. Plus, I use subscriptions on Webtoon more as bookmarks so I don't lose track of comics I find interesting, even if I haven't started reading them yet.

Based on the summary, despite me initially looking at Obsidian Bride because its thumbnail reminded me of the isekais I've been reading, this comic has more of a My Happy Marriage and The Dragon King's Bride vibe. The main character is forced into an arranged marriage, much like the isekais. However, she is then invited to join "the empire's Jewel Box" where each member is assigned a gemstone - presumably, she's obsidian. There she finds friends and perhaps true love.

I talked briefly about it above when I was discussing isekais, but I also started following the completed story Answer Me, My Prince. Another one on the To Read list that I haven't officially started. However, the premise seems fun. The main character is a romance editor who is given the manuscript for a romance novel's sequel, along with an antique trunk. She stores the manuscript within the trunk, only to discover the next morning that the manuscript is gone, and is replaced by a letter from the novel's male lead: the titular prince. Apparently the typical chaos ensues as the editor tries to sort out what is going on with her penpal, the fictional prince, and tries to deduce if he's been magically conjured into the real world. And, if so, how to find him and send him back. Seems fun. Just haven't taken the time to start it yet.

The most recent romance I HAVE started is My Husband Changes Every Night. Quite frankly, I was amused by the title, and then intrigued by the synopsis the app gave:

Following the death of the World Tree, all that stands between the apocalypse and salvation is the Divine Maiden, prophesied to restore peace and prosperity. But never mind all that. Princess Teriella Rufeon has more pressing issues at hand: her family keeps trying to kill her, she’s got a secret healing power to keep under wraps, and she’s just found out she’s being sent off to marry the infamous tyrant Emperor Rivanfel von Leonharta! But there’s more to Rivanfel than meets the eye, and Teriella discovers she isn’t the only one with a grave secret to hide…

How could I NOT tear into this story to figure out what the HECKEN is happening!?

What's happening is that Teriella is a spirited middle child of a cruel, power-hungry, and callous king. I haven't gotten far enough in yet to know why everyone hates Teriella so much, but, given her pink hair compared to the rest of her siblings having their father's sickly-green hair, I'm guessing she's a half-sibling of some sort? They also hate Teriella because all of their attempts to kill her backfire and instead severely injure them. HA! Serves them right!

In an attempt to both get rid of Teriella and gain more political power, her father sells her off as the emperor's newest potential bridal candidate. Thus far, the emperor has cast out all previous candidates, and there's been rumors of him straight up executing them. As far as the Rufeon (appropriate name) household is concerned, either Teriella can prove herself useful by becoming empress, or she'll be shunned/killed off. Either way, she's out of their hair. And worse comes to worst, if she is shunned by the emperor but returned to the Rufeon kingdom, her father could just sell her off again to another king to try to build political favor that way.

The moment the emperor sees Teriella, however, he realizes that she's the prophesized Divine Maiden; the only one that could temporarily cure his own ailment. See, he was secretly experimented on as a child. The experiments were so horrid that all traces of it - including the test subjects - were supposed to be destroyed. He is the sole survivor and the lone bit of evidence that the experiments even happened (outside of the populous' memory of the events). Despite being the emperor, he still has to hide that he was experimented on. However, every night, as the moon shines upon him, a side effect of the experimentation causes a tattoo to form on his chest and his hair to become snow-white. To keep his secret, he has always hidden away after sunset, causing him to be viciously stern about his isolation. This resulted in the rumors of him being an angry drunkard, a womanizer (due to his revolving door of empress candidates), and a cold-hearted murderer.

However, if Teriella could use her power to heal him, he wouldn't have to hide at night! Problem is, her healing isn't permanent, so she'd have to cure him nightly. She agrees because he reminded her that religious zealots would want to sacrifice the Divine Maiden in an attempt to appease their god and revive the World Tree. He'd keep her secret if she agrees to keep his... and help him out.

That's as far as I got into that story, but it seems fun.

As I mentioned above, I haven't gotten around to reading it yet - haven't even officially subscribed to it yet - but there is also Divorcing My Tyrant Husband. Another isekai with the wavy-redhead protag who had been isekai'd into her favorite novel. She's reincarnated as "Empress Robellia Le Castilla, the wife of the tyrant Alexandros the second." She had felt sorry for Robellia while reading the novel, but is now struggling to change her fate... mostly by divorcing her husband. She thinks it will be easy since the Emperor was always more affectionate towards his consort in the novel. Which leads me to believe that, just like all of those other isekais, the protag actually gets reincarnated into the novel's protagonist's romantic rival/the villainess of the story. Much like all of the other stories, the male lead who is seemingly cold to the villainess in the novel turns out to be the isekai'd protag's main love interest. The more the protag tries to convince Alexandros to divorce her the more intrigued with her he becomes.

Finally, we have The Reborn Young Lord is an Assassin (although, the internet tab is titled "The Regressed Son of a Duke is an Assassin"... sooooo... maybe that's the literal title translation???). This one seems to be a lot like Leveling Up My Husband to the Max, in which the main character gets reincarnated as his younger self in order to correct his life path. It's also very similar to Mythic Item Obtained in that regard. In fact, given that this story has a male lead and is focused on him being an assassin, I'm assuming it is much more akin to MIO. In other words, aggressive and action-packed as opposed to romantic. So, much like MIO, it's probably on the reading backburner for a bit while I ride my Isekai Romance wave.

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OK. All other comic subscriptions recapped? Good! Now we can get into the true meat-and-potatoes one! The one I've been skirting around all update: Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story.

Not all villains are evil. When Suna Choi reincarnates as Edith Rigelhof, the villain from her favorite novel, she is determined to change Edith’s life around and treats everyone with kindness. Although she marries the handsome Killian Rudwick, he is madly in love with the original protagonist of the book and mistrusts Edith because she is from a rival family. Will her marriage survive the whirlwind of family feuds, love triangles, and more? Will Edith find her happy ending?

When Webtoon first suggested Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story I thought it was going to be a knockoff of either the completed Leveling Up My Husband to the Max or the on-going I Will Live the Life of a Villainess, which has a very similar plot. But I was so impressed! Out of this whole “Female Lead isekai'd into redheaded noble woman” trope, I think NYTRS is my favorite. I still very much love IWLLV, but that story is more focused on the Female Empowerment and political power grabs between the princes. The actual romance of this supposed romance-genre comic is VEEEERY much on the back burner. LUMHttM is also very enjoyable. For that story, the romance is a lot more forefront, and it does still have the survival drive of the female lead avoiding the fate of being executed. However, there is this weird, sci-fi “The Creator” mystery element in NYTRS that just kind of pushes it to the forefront. That, plus the mystery of sorting out who is actually an ally of Edith and who are the villains is so fun.

I should probably give you the broad-strokes plot, huh?

Okay, so, Suna Choi is that nondescript South Korean office worker with long hair in a high ponytail that meets a tragic end, and is reincarnated as the villainess of her favorite book: Stop Obsessing Over Me, Brother!

In the novel, the protagonist Rhyse (pronounced Reese) Sinclair is the illegitimate daughter of a count. Due to her illegitimacy, her family horribly mistreats her (again, think "Cinderella"). One day, she saves Duchess Jocelyn Rudwick from falling off of her horse. The Duke and Duchess are instantly (platonically) smitten by the girl's beauty and kindness. Upon hearing how she is mistreated, they offer to forgive the massive debts owed by the Sinclairs in exchange for guardianship over Rhyse. Now a ward of the Rudwicks, she is finally trained and raised in the ways of being a lady of the court. She also meets the Rudwicks' sons Cliff and Killian. The boys instantly fall for her and obsessively dote over her, hence the title of the novel. But, alas, Duke Axel Rudwick's most fearsome rival Count Rigelhof wished to set up a marriage arrangement between his daughter Edith and one of the Rudwick boys. Knowing that Count Rigelhof was planning a coup against the Emperor, Duke Rudwick agreed to the arrangement, hoping they could keep the count's beloved Edith as a sort of hostage to rein the count in (meanwhile, the count was hoping he could use Edith as a spy within the Rudwick's household). Edith is married off to the younger son Killian, but, in the novel, this doesn't stop him from pursuing Rhyse. The whole novel then centers on Rhyse's love triangle between her and the two brothers, all while the jealous Edith does everything in her power to try to sabotage and even kill Rhyse so that she (Edith) could remain Killian's wife and benefit from that social status. In the end, Rhyse marries the older brother Cliff, but Killian still executes Edith himself for her many crimes against Rhyse and the Rudwick family as a whole.

Suna figures the easiest way to rewrite Edith's fate is to simply let her husband Killian be with Rhyse. Don't get jealous. Don't get attached. It's a simple business arrangement. Stay out of Killian's way so he can continue to act as if he wasn't married. Step two: just... don't spy on the Rudwicks for her father. She'll already be out of his home, so what could he do about it anyway? Maybe she could let him know that his coup is futile, and he might be grateful for her saving him and his troops. Easy peasy!

That is.... until she meets the count. Upon which, a sci-fi like screen (disembodied voice?) pops up to announce that Suna is "Edith Rigelhof v13.0".

Scene from episode 1
Story by Lemon Frog
Art by A-jin

(Yeah, I know, art re-uploading is a trash move, but I wanted to convey the pseudo-sci-fi vibe they included in this fantasy romance. I hope the watermarks are enough to appease.)

Suna is then shown Edith's memories up until that point. That way Suna knows everything Edith did, and understands the role she's supposed to be playing. It is then that Suna realizes that Edith's pampered, promiscuous, entitled, and conniving persona showcased in the novel was all just a facade. In truth, she was routinely abused by her father, brother, and even the Rigelhof family servants. She was draped in gorgeous, revealing gowns and gaudy jewelry by her family whenever she was to be paraded around the other nobles. She was prostituted out as a means of espionage and as a tactic to break up powerful rivals. If she failed any of the sleezy, underhanded tasks she was given she would be severely punished once alone with her family.

Suna knew she needed out of that house and away from that "family". She was elated to be married off to Killian. Especially when, upon meeting him at their engagement dinner, she instantly fell for his good looks. She told herself to not get attached because his heart belonged to Rhyse already, but she still loved herself the eye candy she was about to get hitched to.

That is when everything started to fall apart for poor Suna/Edith. She knew all of the main plot beats; all of the core conflicts between Edith and Rhyse. She did everything within her power to try to avoid them.

First was an incident on Edith and Killian's wedding day. Perhaps out of spite or as a show of force, the Rudwicks dressed Rhyse in a white gown to attend the wedding. In the novel, Edith berates Rhyse about the white dress, setting up their conflict and establishing Edith as the villainess. This time, though, when Rhyse went up to Edith (Suna) to welcome her into the family, Edith honestly found Rhyse adorable. She complimented her dress and how good it looked on her. When Rhyse later ran into Killian, however, the interaction went sour. Rhyse happily told him that Edith complimented her dress. To which, Killian warned her to not take Edith's words at face value. She was most likely giving her a snide, backhanded compliment, but Rhyse is just too innocent to understand how cruel Edith was truly being.

The next big conflict was with the dressmakers. In the novel, Edith was accused of being bratty, entitled, and snooty about her dresses. Part of that came from the outfits her family dressed her up in, as well as her reputation that she never wore the same dress twice. To try to counter that, when the dressmakers came to the estate, Edith (Suna) helped pick out dresses for both the Duchess and for Rhyse, but, instead of ordering dresses for herself, Edith (Suna) simply ordered to have her dresses altered. Cover up the cleavage, remove the gaudy jewel appliques, and have a more refined fit. Killian still accused Edith of being entitled, snooty, and bratty; claiming she didn't order new dresses because she'd rather re-wear old dresses than wear anything the dressmakers could sew for her.

Next was when the jewelry makers came through. In the novel, everyone was doting on Rhyse, and she felt guilty that Edith was being left out. She offered up a dainty necklace she thought Edith would like. Edith was offended by such a small jewel and instead pointed out some of the most extravagant pieces the makers brought with them. The Rudwicks found Edith greedy, and, to teach her a lesson, Cliff bought up everything to gift to Rhyse. He left only the necklace Rhyse originally suggested for Edith, forcing her to humble herself by either taking that dainty necklace or have no new jewelry at all. However, when Rhyse first offered the necklace to Edith (Suna), Edith genuinely thought it was lovely, and gladly accepted it. Killian offered to buy the necklace for Edith. To not be shown up, Cliff ended up buying the rest of the inventory and gifting it to Rhyse; creating a similar end result as the novel.

Edith was then accused of espionage and smuggling of important military inventory documentation to her father. Despite Edith in the novel doing exactly what she was accused of, Suna/Edith made a point of messaging her father that she would not smuggle intel to him, and he should give up on his coup attempt. And yet, she was still accused of spying, clearly framed.

Edith (Suna) soon realizes that the novel plot is fixed. No matter what she does to try to change Edith's fate, the story somehow self-corrects to keep the plot on track. It even messes with Killian. All of the changes that Suna has made as Edith is slowly winning Killian over. He's softening with her and spending more time with his wife, as opposed to Rhyse. However, if he's not battling his brother for Rhyse's heart then there is no love-triangle conflict. To correct that, whenever Killian starts to show any sort of affection towards Edith (even simply thinking kindly of her), he gets a massive headache, and Rhyse magically shows up to help soothe the pain.

After a particular event - which I'll explain a bit more in a minute - Suna is introduced to the concept of The Creator. Presumably, they are the one who originally authored the story, and the one who keeps course-correcting the plot.

Frankly, as an author who has little-to-no control over my own characters, and as someone who has to constantly course-correct to keep the plot I want to tell.... I feel for The Creator a little bit. Even if they are the true antagonist of the story. And probably why Suna is now the THIRTEENTH version of Edith!

Peeps, I am ABSORBED into this story! March 23rd-24th I did that classic kid tactic of hiding under the covers to continue reading instead of going to bed! I was up until 3am binge reading this comic! I probably would have stayed up longer but my tablet was down to 6% battery! I just craved more and more and more of this wonderful webcomic.

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The art is gorgeous. Edith - the Suna version - is a sweetheart, but also knows how to hold her own. She isn't afraid to stand her ground when she knows she's being wronged, but she also knows when to sit and hold her tongue as her opponent digs their own grave. She knows how to play that political chess match I'm missing from The Fateful Invitation. There's also so many mysteries. So much intrigue.

IS Rhyse as innocent as she seems? Is it all a ploy? She seems almost TOO innocent. Plus, she does show up whenever Killian starts to be affectionate towards Edith, and she is the center of those incidents that go awry even when Edith does everything in her power to avoid conflict. Is that Rhyse's doing? Or The Creator's? Who even IS The Creator? How can Suna/Edith defeat them? Despite evidence of the contrary - namely Novel Rhyse marrying Cliff - did Rhyse prefer Killian over Cliff this whole time, and is jealous of Edith being his wife? Is Cliff the master mind conspirator against Edith? The one who keeps framing her? Something about him feels overly passive-aggressively vicious. What about Edith's mother-in-law, who has always seemed like an ally? Is she as sweet and supportive as she seems, or is she playing the MASSIVE long-con? I mean, she IS still part of the Rudwick family. Is baron Rhynon Filch - the Rudwick family's vassel and head secretary - the ally Edith believes, or is he plotting against her as a means to protect his lords without their direction? Is HE perhaps jealous of Killian? A lot of fans – me included, for a bit – did ship Edith with Rhynon and hoped that part of Edith dismantling the original story plot included her having an affair with him. I mean, it's not like Killian loved her anyway. He could have Rhyse. She would have Rhynon. Happy marriage!

To be clear, I have since changed my mind now that Killian is coming around. I hope instead for he and Edith to learn to love and trust each other. Happy marriage!

The other main thing that NYTRS has for it over the other comics I've been reading? Why, that would be Edith and Killian's romance plot inspiring me to write actual prose finally!

Yeah! I know, it's been about 50mins worth of reading (if you didn't use the skips), but I am FINALLY at the point that I'm sure you fine folks truly care about.

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So, that incident I kind of handwaved past earlier? The one that lead to the reveal of The Creator? Well, Edith discovers that it's pointless to try to change the original novel plot. She has failed miserably up until this point. She's waving the white flag. She might as well not think as hard and just follow the plot as it was laid out in the novel. Give her time to grieve her eventual demise at the hand of her own husband (whom, despite her efforts there too, she has fallen for).

The next big plot point in the novel? Well, after the espionage charge, Novel Edith is fearful of her position within the Rudwick household. In a last-ditch attempt to win Killian to her side - to act as a buffer/shield for her - Novel Edith decides to fall back on her family's training. She'd seduce Killian.

Problem is, Suna knows that the novel version of Killian is so in love with and devoted to Rhyse that Edith's seduction was DOA. When Novel Edith attempts to sneak into Killian's bedroom at night he is furious with her, and it makes everything all the worse for the villainess. Suna/Edith doesn't want to go through with it, but, if she's going to be blamed and shunned for the seduction regardless, she might as well have fun attempting it. Right?

Begrudgingly, Edith (Suna) sneaks into Killian's bedroom, just as the novel version did. She knows that her version of Killian is different than the novel version, seeing hints of him actually careing for her (Edith/Suna). She hopes that he'll become so furious about the attempted seduction that he'll revert to the novel version of himself and she won't have the (seemingly false) hope of his affection hanging over her anymore.

But, surprise-surprise, the seduction not only works, but... it works in reverse! Killian catches Edith in his room and starts teasing her about it. She tries to explain that she didn't mean to do anything salacious. He counters by seducing HER instead! She resists, pointing out that she knows he'd much rather save himself for Rhyse. Oddly enough, this only entices Killian further. His wife knows that he's in love with another woman, and doesn't seem to mind in the slightest. Now all he wants is for Edith to care; to be jealous; to lust for him; to want him all to herself. The seduction continues.

Much like the story Bitterblue that I read back in July 2019, I knew I couldn't just let a handwaved sex scene go undescribed.

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Edited by LycoRogue

Yeah. I know. Me and smut, right? I don't know what it is. That connection - that first physically intimate interaction - just seems too important to handwave past. I woke up the morning after reading that episode, and it just stuck with me. I read a couple more free episodes, but I kept going back to that seduction scene. I needed to know more of what was going on in Edith (Suna)'s head. I needed to know what Killian was thinking as he gave up his virginity for someone other than Rhyse. I needed that passion. That lust. That confusion but also connection. Despite Edith expecting Killian to regret sleeping with her the moment they finished, or even after waking up the next day, neither happened. Killian seemed more attentive with Edith, offered after care, and even playfully flirted still.

I WANT TO HAVE MORE OF THAT! I WANT THAT VULNERABILITY! I WANT THOSE HEART-RACING MOMENTS! I WANT THAT PLAYFULNESS!

And, well, THIS right here is the core of the "write for yourself" advice. Isn't it? If you want a story and it doesn't yet exist, you might as well write it yourself, right?

I mean, I couldn't get Killian nibbling on Edith's neck out of my head anyway, so might as well.

Sunday, March 24th, I spent HOURS (about five? Six?) working on this story. I... definitely didn't expect to spend so much time on it. Let alone spend that kind of time on this fanfic and not even finish it! If you've read my fanfics before you know that I aim to write them so that anyone could read them, even if they aren't familiar with the source material. I like to think that it's a way for my family and/or my fandom friends to join me in a new fandom, even if briefly. It's also a great refresher for myself years later when I might not necessarily remember the source material as well anymore.

So, that said, I PLANNED to simply recap the seduction scene. You know, just to set everything up. A quick lead-in to them actually sleeping together, the same way I did for Sparks for the Moment. Problem is, what started as a recap turned into an almost play-by-play novelization of the comic in order to dive deeper into both characters' psyche a bit. I described every panel between Edith sneaking into the room and that fade to black. I.... did not realize that the seduction scene was made up of THIRTY-FIVE panels! That's more than half of the 61-panel episode (yes, I went through and counted them all). I forgot the seduction scene was literally over half of the whole episode. No wonder it stuck with me.

On top of the novelization of the scene itself, I also recapped scenes that happened earlier in the series - such as Edith's failed attempts to change the story plot or Killian reading a passage of Edith's diary she had shared as a handwriting sample - and added in some inner monologue that wasn't included in the original story but I felt MUST have been happening.

In the end, I wrote over 3700 words that day! That's more prose than I wrote in ALL of 2023! I didn't even get to the scene I wanted to write in the first place. I don't know how I managed it, but I averaged a little over 100 words per comic panel!

Sadly, I still haven't had a moment to finish that story and post it. So I still missed my New Year's Resolution "stretch goal" of publishing a new story once a quarter. But I still consider this a writing victory! I mean... THIRTY-SEVEN-HUNDRED WORDS! IN ONE DAY! How can I be mad about that? Especially when the reason I haven't finished working on the story is because I've been chipping away at this epic of a blog update since March 25th.

I finally had something I was excited to talk about, so I started working on this post. I THOUGHT it was only going to take me a day or two to write up. Then I could get back to finishing my Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story smutty fanfic. I'd publish it, then jump back into this blog post. I'd update it with a link to the new story. I'd check off the "new story per quarter" resolution. Huzzah!

Clearly, things didn't go as planned, but.... yeah. I'm still happy!

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I mean, I'm already 3700 words in, and I haven't even gotten to what I WANTED to write about! How massive is this fanfic going to end up once all is said and done?

More fun? I just checked AO3 for any/all NYTRS fanfics (I included both the original South Korean webnovel and the translated webtoon in my search). There's only TWO stories right now. One is I think written in Ukrainian and the other is a boy-love AU where Suna is reincarnated as a male version of Edith but is still intended to be married to Killian. The non-English one is under 1000 words long, and is 1 out of an unspecified number of chapters. Posted earlier this week! The English BL AU one is also 1 chapter out of an unspecified number, posted November 2023, and is currently holding at 1500 words.

THEN LYCOROGUE COMES IN WITH A STEEL CHAIR!

Edited by LycoRogue

Either this story is getting tossed into a desert and never gets seen by anyone or I will be laying out an all-you-can-eat buffet before some starving Edith/Killian shippers to devour. It will be interesting to see how this goes.

Regardless of how well this smut does, I may very well stay on this NYTRS train for a little while. I've gotten further into the webcomic, and there's a couple more Killian/Edith scenes where Killian's mental state and actions are implied, but I want to actually SEE THEM!

In one scene, Killian is drawn with this completely shook expression on his face. He then storms out of the room. The next thing we see is Killian in his "He Protec" mode over Edith. I know there is some turmoil going on in that man's brain that I'd love to exploit for my own entertainment!

There's also a scene where Duke Rudwick shows Killian the land he'll be inheriting while Cliff gets the rest of the dukedom. Killian tries not to focus on his feelings of being slighted by his father since Killian can't remain within the dukedom. His distraction from that rage? Killian wonders how well Edith will adapt to moving away from the capital and to colder weather. I'd love to explore that as well, along with the week-long journey Killian took both out to the manor he'll inherit and then back to the Rudwick family estate. Same with Killian's thoughts when his mom told him about Edith's cross-stitch project....

There's just so much of Killian's character and thought processes we, the audience, aren't privy to since the story is mostly told from Edith/Suna's POV. I want that content though! I want more of Killian as well!

I might have found my new well of inspiration and I am so so SO excited!

And I promise it won't be ALL smut stories. I'll have some mom-friendly ones in there too.

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Edited by LycoRogue

Now, to ride this wave into working on my stalled Miraculous Ladybug aged-up smut story.....

We'll see where all of this goes. How much more writing will I do? What other bits of this story will inspire me? As I mentioned earlier, I made the mistake of using the ads to unlock early access to the next 3 episodes, which means I don't have anything new to read for A MONTH! Which probably means a lot of re-reads of the free episodes.

Man! It's so awesome when a story just grabs hold of you. The way that "Hey, Arnold!" and Miraculous Ladybug and even Hailey's On It! have all gripped me in the past. I need more of that in my life!

But I'm now about two weeks into working on this blog update! And you fine folks have set up camp to go through all of this with me for over an hour! So, I'll let you go, and I'll return to my smut writing.

Catch ya later this month!

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P.S. - Happy birthday to my niece, my friend celestialTyrant, and my aunt! (It's a big birthday date!)

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